Pagina's

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

We wake up
at a very unwholesome five o’clock in the morning with the muezzin violently
screaming through the vessel’s speakers. Suddenly dozens of men dressed in
white night gowns start bowing to the rhythm. It takes until eleven before we
reach the port.

We watch the whole unloading and disembarking scene patiently.
It’s no use getting down there along with the rest of the passengers, pushing
and shoving for a breath of fresh air. We were the last ones to board and we’ll
be the last to leave, as our bikes are inconveniently positioned on the side
opposite the exit gate.

When
finally everything’s cleared, we cannot disembark, because someone’s
disappeared with our passports for the last couple of hours to get entry
stamps. Since nobody can provide us with updates on the process, I decide to
get off to look for our documents myself. What are they going to do? Arrest me?
One of the crew reluctantly accompanies me to the administration building,
probably thinking what an arrogant, independent, insubordinate white b*** I am. We go into a couple of offices and within the next ten minutes
I’m back with our papers.

Then we
have to get our bikes through customs, a notoriously nerve wrecking process.
First we’re told that we’ll have to wait till Saturday (today’s Thursday)
because we are late and offices close within half an hour. We give them a piece
of our mind and tell them that if their colleagues have decided to take us
hostage for a couple of hours, they’ll just have to do overtime. We have to pay
a customs fee in Egyptian pounds, 530£ per motorcycle to be exact. Of course
there’s no ATM on the grounds and no official forex bureau. Very convenient
indeed, for the fixer Kamal, who is the only one changing Euros. At first he
wanted to screw me over with the rate, seeing I was desperate, but somehow I
managed to haggle a fair deal.

Maybe because he is going to earn money of us
anyway, because he is the only one allowed to mediate with the Traffic Police,
to get our Arabic license plates and a special insurance, because although it
says so on the yellow card, COMESA isn’t valid in Egypt. We wait outside,
together with the South Africans who are clearing their cars. By four o’clock,
just as we decided to build a party and barbeque some steaks right there in the
parking lot, Kamal comes back with our plates and papers.

Luckily the
guard that has to do a baggage check at the gate shows some mercy and only
takes a quick peak in our tank bags. Then we’re finally released. I feel like I
could drink a whole pool, but I have to go for a bottle of water at three times
the normal price instead. By the time we check into our hotel, we’re already
seriously pissed off about the Egyptians and their merchant’s spirit. Even
going out to do some grocery shopping or buy some falafel involves serious
bargaining, where the shop owner will simply refuse to sell you anything at the
going rate!

Fortunately
the hotel is a gem compared to the usual Sudanese nightmares. It has all the
modern luxuries you may want plus a rooftop pool at a reasonable price
(breakfast with pancakes included!). It even smells clean! An, Jo, Kristina and
Andrew are also staying there and together we have a wonderful time, with
interesting talks, duty free beers and a ridiculous game we name “the
whirlpool”.

We take
care of all the practicalities – including a chain replacement for Nicolaas’
bike – on our first day in Aswan, so we can visit Abu Simbel on my birthday.
This involves waking up at a quarter to three in the morning, stepping into a
minibus which joins a convoy, riding for three and a half hours to visit the
temples in two hours and then turn back. But I can’t say I regret it. It is very
majestic indeed and due to the low season heat and post revolution paranoia,
there were very few other tourists. Without the guards that consider it part of
their job description to sexually harass female visitors, the visit was even
serene. A late afternoon sailing trip on the Nile followed by dinner and late
night swimming in the pool complete what has been a wonderful day.

It’s hard
to get started again, to saddle the bikes and take off in this heat. The
fertile Nile valley is at times beautiful to see, but the many villages, police
checkpoints and speed bumps slow us down drastically. We get particularly
annoyed with the reckless and selfish driving of the Egyptians.

In Edfu, we
take a detour to the Temple of Horus. The parking lot is completely empty and
we have the grounds all to ourselves, to wander through dark alleys, up
staircases and around pillars in the magnificently conserved temple complex. When we get back on the road, the sunlight has already changed colors. Half an
hour later, we are stopped by traffic police for a routine passport control.
Just when we hope to get as far as possible before sunset, they keep us waiting
and finally want to send us back to Edfu to pick up a police escort. No way. We
try to discuss, knowing that the convoy and escort requirement has been
cancelled since 2009 on this road, but when they refuse to hand in, we manage
to get our passports back and ride off against their will. The whole situation
has cost us a lot of time and we are forced to ride the last hours to Luxor in
the dark.

Since our
last Adventure in Kenya, it has become very tempting to treat ourselves to a
little luxury. So we take a nice hotel with a view on the Temple of Luxor,
right in front of the alley of the Sphinxes. From there, we explore the monuments
on the West Bank: starting with the Valley of the Kings – where a few mostly
Russian tour groups don’t prevent us from being completely on our own in the
Tomb of Tutanchamon – and ending with the Temple of Hatshepsut, where we
witness how these organized tours spend literally 15 minutes on site before the
bus starts honking. The guards don’t seem to be used to people who actually
show interest and try to earn some baksheesh by luring us into places with
restricted access. We loathe their way of ruining the atmosphere with their
loud voices and mostly useless comments.

Back in Luxor, we have a temple-view
dinner at McDonald’s before visiting the nicely lit monument in the center of
town. After visiting the temple complex in Karnak next day and being sun-fried
and saturated with obelisks and hieroglyphs, we stumble across our fellow
travelers Jo/An and Andrew/Kristina on the parking lot. The reunion is short,
because we have just had the news that we ought to be in Israel on the 22nd
of July, well in advance for the boat to Italy. It leaves us with 2 days to
cross the 1200km to Cairo via the Western Desert, and even then we will
unlikely be in Israel before Shabbat starts on Friday afternoon. Beautiful as
it may be, rushing past the White Desert will only leave us more frustrated, so
we decide to abandon that plan. Instead, we’ll take the fast highway through
the Eastern Desert and along the Red Sea coast.

We ride the
incredible 785km to Cairo in one day. It doesn’t feel like we’ve missed
anything: after all the sprawling resorts being constructed along the coast
from Hurghada to Suez can hardly be called eye candy.

Crossing Cairo at night
is something else though. We have read that it is the largest city in Africa,
and for once we tend to believe it. Roads of moderate quality, unfinished but
rather well planned, wind through the suburbs to a vast city center. For 40kms
we are riding through the city before reaching Giza. On the way, we come closer
to several traffic accidents than ever before in any African city, because of
the utter life-threatening and ruthless driving of most cars. A rare
motorcyclist or quad risks his life in the high speed traffic jams.

We find the
room with pyramid-view, pay a Russian-style quick visit next morning (where we
learn that the price of a camel ride has undergone deflation to £2 (€ 0.25)
because of the lack of tourists), and then start the horrific ride through the
city center, back to the east.